About Reid Bramblett

ReidsItaly.com is written, designed, and maintained by guidebook author and travel expert Reid Bramblett.

Reid learned Italian on a Roman playground when he was 12 years old while his father, Frank, a painter and professor at Tyler School of Art, was teaching at the school's Temple University Rome campus. That's how Reid ended up spending his adolescence exploring Europe in a hippie-orange VW camper van with his parents.

Reid later took a break from his studies in Cornell's anthropology department to spend his own junior year abroad in Italy.

Why bother listening to Reid's advice?

After a stint in the editorial offices of the Frommer's guidebooks, Reid Bramblett decided to see what life was like on the other side of the desk. His first gig as a freelance writer: Frommer's first regional guide, Frommer's Tuscany & Umbria. He spent the next decade exploring, learning, taking notes, and reporting it all in guidebooks and articles.

Here are some of the more than 30 travel guidebooks Reid has written or to which he has contributed:

• Frommer's Italy from $90 a Day
• Frommer's Tuscany & Umbria
• DK's Eyewitness Top 10 Milan & the Lakes
• DK's Eyewitness Top 10 Tuscany
• Frommer's Northern Italy
• Frommer's Pocket Guide to Florence
• Pauline Frommer's Italy (coauthor)
• DK's Eyewitness Top 10 Rome (coauthor)
• Eyewitness Italy (contributor)
• Eyewitness Rome (contributor)
• Eyewitness Milan (contributor)
• Europe for Dummies
• The Complete Idiot's Travel Guide to Planning Your Trip to Europe

Beyond guidebooks

In print

As a daily travel reporter for MSNBC.com in 2003/04, Reid won two Lowell Thomas awards for travel writing.

Reid has written feature articles for the Miami Herald, Yahoo.com, Dallas Morning News, AOL Travel, TravelandLeisure.com, Modern Bride, and Newsweek.

He is a Contributing Editor to Condè Nast's Concierge.com and to Budget Travel magazine, where he formerly served as Associate Editor.

Reid's weekly adventure column, "The Intrepid Traveler," has appeared in the Chicago Daily Herald, the St. Petersburg Times, and the Tampa Bay Times.

On the air

Reid Bramblett has appeared as a travel expert on CNN, Fox NEWS, the Travel Channel, CNNfn, and the New York City affiliates of ABC, Fox, and UPN. He has also been a guest on various NPR programs and stations.

He appeared as the Cultural Anthropologist on the Travel Channel series Cruises We Love, and is the occasional co-host of the weekly nationally syndicated radio call-in show "The Travel Show with Arthur Frommer" (Sundays noon–2pm; www.wor710.com).

In person

Reid lectures regularly on Italy and other travel topics at the Smithsonian Institution, and has spoken at many other venues, including the New York Times Travel Show, the New York's Explorer's Club, many bookstores and libraries, and various professional conferences, including those of SATW (the Society of American Travel Writers, where he was elected to serve as the Active-at-Large).

Reid has also acted as a travel consultant for national tourism boards, major tour companies, scout troops, executives planning trips, and couples looking for something special on their next vacation.

On the web

In addition to ReidsItaly.com, Reid also maintains the award-winning ReidsGuides.com trip-planning site (and its offspring sites NoFrillsAir.com and BeyondHotels.net), which has been recommended by CNN, USA Today, Smart Money, the Washington Post, MSNBC.com, Frommers.com, Fodors.com, Men's Health, Away.com, and National Geographic Traveler, and was been proclaimed "Among the best" by Arthur Frommer.

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